The 2020 campaign just kicked off in a New Hampshire strip mall

In Manchester, Eric Garcetti worked the crowds, introduced himself as “Eric,” and took a bumper sticker and put it on the back of the black SUV he was driving around in. | Christian Petersen/Getty Images

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Just like that, the 2020 retail campaigning for president began right here in a strip-mall campaign headquarters Monday, when Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti showed up for what he called “the most important race in the country.”

He was talking about the Manchester mayor’s election. Joyce Craig, the Democratic candidate, invited him to join her for an afternoon that also included a speech to the Manchester Young Democrats and a fundraiser. Garcetti worked the crowds, introduced himself as “Eric,” and took a bumper sticker and put it on the back of the black SUV he was driving around in.

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“Pay no attention to the Virginia plates,” he said. “It’s a rental.”

On Tuesday, Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.), the only one to have already officially announced, will be here for a two-day trip, trying to get attention for his long-shot bid. On Labor Day, both Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Jason Kander, the Democrat who narrowly lost his U.S. Senate bid in Missouri last year, will be back.

And on Thursday, Sanders — who was in Indiana and Michigan last week — will be in Iowa, along with Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon will be there in October. Former Vice President Joe Biden, who made his own teasing stop here in Manchester at the end of April, is headed to South Carolina in September.

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New Hampshire is the first-in-the-nation primary, but even that’s 29 months away.

Like always, the chatter began the morning after the election, stunted a little by Democrats’ surprise at losing. Behind the scenes, big donors have been getting chased nonstop by candidates who like to deny that they’re anywhere near thinking about being candidates. Strategy sessions are quietly being held. Preliminary calls are going out about potential staff hires. That’s normal, though a little accelerated.

But a combination of President Donald Trump’s historically low poll numbers, the insanely accelerated news cycle and the impatiently roiling Democratic base has the retail campaign — out in the open — starting earlier than anyone would have expected.

“It is early in a traditional context, but if you compare it to other people who are likely running for president, they’re just not saying it,” Delaney said Monday night, in an interview as he arrived at the airport to fly to New Hampshire. “I’m early with my transparency, but not with my activities.”

Ray Buckley, chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, said: “The difference this year is that there’s no overwhelming favorite. And so while these dozen — or two dozen — folks think about it, we’re determined to welcome them.”

There’s still enough hesitation about getting out there that Garcetti is the only prospective 2020er who’s come to campaign for Craig, and even he insists that this is all coincidence. He was on a family vacation in the Berkshires, and just happened to throw in a cocktail reception in the Hamptons at billionaire Ron Perelman’s along the way, so why not head an hour up the interstate from Boston to throw in for the only campaign outside of his own that he’s gotten involved in this year. (He was also the keynote speaker at the Wisconsin Democratic Party convention in June, which he chalked up to a former fundraiser of his moving back there, and has held a fundraiser in Los Angeles for Maryland gubernatorial candidate Ben Jealous, an old friend.) He weaves around saying Trump’s name but puts everything through the lens of the president.

“You can curl up in a corner and cry, you can yell at the Twitter feed on your phone, or you can do something,” he said, rationalizing what he says is his focus on local races at an event where he was already working the line cooks, speaking in Spanish. Leaning into his Mexican heritage, he made a corny joke as only a stumping politician can — “A Mexican restaurant? You had me at hello — or hola.”

“Right now it’s on mayors to set an agenda for the country,” Garcetti said. “In the past, it used to be on Washington to save cities. Now it’s on cities to save Washington.”

Then it was a 25-minute drive to a backyard fundraiser in Derry to speak to all of 33 people — talking up his own record, and a little about Craig, and a line about how, on his time in the Berkshires, “it occurred to me that the day in America starts in the East Coast.”

“People are happy that he’s coming to Manchester, see that he’s interested in the state,” Craig said, explaining why she reached out to invite him.

Some people knew who he was. Some said hello and asked him, "You’re the mayor of … ?”

And meanwhile, a staffer collected names and contact information on a clipboard.

Delaney said he’s hoping to take advantage of everyone else being so coy, figuring that he has the field of declared candidates to himself for a year and a half, while voters are hungry to hear from alternatives.

“Normally people would say, eight months into a new president, let’s give him a chance. I don’t think people are really saying that,” he said.

A man at one of the stops told Garcetti, after the obligatory cellphone photo: “Come back sometime.”

“I will,” the mayor said.

“Maybe when you run for president.”

“Maybe. We’ll see.”

By the next stop, Garcetti had shifted. Come back soon, a man told him as he headed for the car to the airport for the flight home.